LOVERRO: Capitals get over the first-round playoff hump

OPINION:

Washington Capitals coach Spencer Carbery revealed that he is still relatively untouched by the deep scars of failure that are part of this NHL franchise’s history after his team clinched its first-round playoff series against the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night with a 4-1 victory at Capital One Arena.

“I don’t know if anyone knows this,” he said in the postgame press conference. “Our organization, we haven’t won a series since 2018. Seven years it’s been since we won a series.”

Don’t know if anyone knows this? Are you kidding? Capitals playoff pain is part of the curriculum in schools around here. Among the knowledge passed on from one generation of Caps fans to another is the history of postseason crumbling and collapses.

It is part of the DNA of Washington sports fans.  

I doubt there were many Capitals fans who were not aware their team hadn’t won a postseason series since they won their lone Stanley Cup in Las Vegas in 2018. I’ll even bet most of them knew that the Capitals hadn’t clinched a playoff series in front of their home fans since they defeated the New York Islanders in seven games in 2015.

They’ve seen the Caps clinching losses at home — just last April, a 4-2 loss to the New York Rangers in a four-game sweep, with Carbery, in his first year, in charge.

So it was certainly understandable that Caps fans stood and roared as loud as the arena under renovation could handle when the seconds ticked off the clock. It was certainly understandable that no one left the arena as the players hugged each other on the ice to celebrate and then engage in the great tradition of the post-game handshake line with the losing squad. They took it all in.

The Capitals did what they had to do in this first round, what was expected of a No. 1 seed team facing an eight seed, finishing the Canadiens off in five games. The expectations will be different when they face the Carolina Hurricanes, the No. 2 seed in the Metropolitan Division, right behind Washington. 

Those expectations seemed in peril at times, but there were moments for the Capitals that may have changed the series – like Game 4 in Montreal. Washington had a 2-1 lead in the series. Down 2-1 in the third period, Tom Wilson at center ice put a devastating hit on Alexandre Carrier, who slowly rose and barely made it to his bench, while Brandon Duhaime scored the game-tying goal 12 seconds later. Washington went on to win 5-2 and take a 3-1 series lead.

“Game 4, third period, Tom Wilson,” Ovechkin said when asked by reporters about the key moment in the series.

The deciding Game 5 could have changed the series the way it opened, with Washington struggling offensively until the great one, Alex Ovechkin, scored on a power play at 9:12 of the first period to give the Capitals a 1-0 lead. It was the 39-year-old Ovechkin’s fourth goal of the series.

“I could feel we were tight tonight,” Carbery said. “We were tight. It didn’t feel comfortable. You could see it with some of the decisions, some puck touches.”

Ovechkin put them at ease. “He was outstanding the whole series, scoring huge goals,” Carbery said. “Tonight is a prime example. When you are tight and you’re trying to settle into your game, to get that first goal is huge.”

Carbery, though a newcomer to Washington playoff suffering, certainly recognized the impact that losing this series would have had, after five first-round exits since the team won the Stanley Cup, growing more distant in the rear-view mirror. 

“Hopefully we can take a little bit of a deep breath now that we got over that hump,” Carbery said.

Did he say hump? My God, that’s a Washington losing fairy tale – manager Davey Martinez bringing three camels to Washington Nationals spring training in 2018 to slay the hump that was supposedly keeping the Nats from getting past the first round of the baseball playoffs. They would fail to even reach the playoffs that season but won the World Series in 2019.

“I want them to embrace it, not fear it, and have fun with it,” Martinez said.

The Capitals losing another first-round series would not have been fun, nothing to embrace and everything to fear. That would have been a Blue Ridge Mountain-sized hump. 

Now Carolina awaits. Don’t breathe too deeply. For the Capitals, they’re all humps.

• Catch Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.